Banned but not Gagged!

Health campaigner - Paul Broadhurst

A local pensioner and health campaigner from Dukinfield, in Greater Manchester, has received an invitation to a 'community open day' at 'Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust', despite being banned from entering hospital premises since November 2016.

Last September, Paul Broadhurst, received a letter from Weightmans solicitors of Liverpool- who act on behalf of Tameside Hospital - advising him that he was banned from entering any Trust premises unless his attendance was for a medical emergency or a pre-arranged medical appointment.

In October 2016, Mr. Broadhurst, who suffers from a serious heart condition, was escorted off the hospital premises by security staff while accompanying his wife who was attending the hospital for emergency medical treatment. He was told by hospital security staff that he'd been 'ASBO'd' and would have to leave the premises immediately. The CEO, of Tameside Hospital, Karen James, subsequently apologised for the way Mr Broadhurst and his wife had been treated, but the ban was not lifted. The letter form Weightmans solicitors, warned him:

"If you attend for any other purpose then you would be trespassing and action could be taken to remove you from the site and/or legal action could be brought against you."

To justify their actions in excluding Mr Broadhurst, the hospital alleges that he had called for the resignation of Paul Connellan, the Chairman of the hospital Board, and had disrupted meetings and intimidated staff. While Mr Broadhurst acknowledges that he's called on Connellan to resign, he says that many of the allegations made against him by the hospital are malicious, defamatory and unsubstantiated.  He says that in spite of seeking specific details about the nature of any complaints that have been made against him, neither the hospital or their solicitors, have been able to provide him with any "hard evidence." He also points out that his membership of the hospital Trust, has never been rescinded, although he cannot attend hospital meetings because of the ban.

It has often been cited in official reports on Tameside Hospital that hospital staff frequently feel bullied and harassed, not by Mr Broadhurst, but by Tameside Hospital management. Even though the hospital as a policy of "if in doubt speak out", many hospital staff have indicated in these reports that they feel at risk if they speak out about their concerns. Mr Broadhurst, alleges that one public governor from Droylsden, was forced to resign in February 2016, after raising concerns about "NHS Improvements." In his own particular case, he feels that the ban imposed by Tameside Hospital, is a crude attempt to silence him and to stop him asking awkward and critical questions and attending hospital meetings.

Tameside Hospital is massively in debt and this is a major reason why it was recently announced that Shire Hill Hospital in Glossop, is to close. The hospital are also planning to cut 246 beds at Tameside Hospital by 2020. Although the official spiel from the hospital is couched in terms of 'improving services' and 'reconfiguration', the financial considerations are inescapable. In 2010, the official regulator 'Monitor', declared the hospital to be "Clinically and financially unsustainable." In 2015/16 compensation claims hit £9m and we understand that five hospital board members, have recently "jumped ship."

Last year, the Trust balance sheet showed a deficit of £14 million plus a loan from the NHS for hospital improvements (including the new Darnton Unit at the Hospital) of £55 million. By  the end of the current financial year the estimated deficit will be £24 million and the loan will have risen to £78 million. At the declared interest rate of 3.6%, the repayments on the loan alone, will be at least £2.8 million per year.

At the Annual General Meeting of the Tameside and Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group (TGCCG), held at Dukinfield Town Hall on 26 July,  Mr Broadhurst - who was the only member of the public to attend the meeting - asked if the debt of the Trust would affect the ability of the TGCCG when funding or setting up with other service providers for the needs of the community. Kathy Rose, the Chief Financial Officer for TGCCG replied that this would have no bearing on money that the TGCCG allocates, as the hospital deal was directly with NHS Improvements. We understand that Paul Connellan, the Chairman of the Board at Tameside Hospital, who was at the meeting, declined to comment.

While Paul Broadhurst may have been banned from attending meetings at Tameside Hospital, it doesn't appear that the hospital have managed to gag him. He can now be found most weeks at the hospital car park, with placard and T-shirt proudly proclaiming, "THE TRUST THAT HIDES THE TRUTH!"

We understand that after receiving the invitation to attend the Tameside Hospital AGM and the "Open Day", Mr Broadhurst sent an email to the hospital on 23rd August, asking if his ban had been lifted. At the time of writing, we gather that the hospital have yet to respond.

Ashton MP keeps 'shtum' about Tameside Hospital bed cuts!

In February. we published an email that had been sent by Tameside health campaigner, Rod McCord, to the Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne, Angela Rayner. 

In his email, Mr. McCord, a member of the Tameside Hospital Action Group (THAG),  had referred to plans to cut 246 beds at the hospital (by 2020) thereby reducing bed capacity at the hospital, by 55% and the "virtual wall of silence surrounding bed cuts and the future of A&E."

At the time of writing, Ms. Rayner, had not replied to Mr. McCord's email of 5th December 2016. As we feel that it is in the public interest, we are now publishing below a reply Mr. McCord received from her dated 20th February 2017 dealing with some of the matters raised in his initial email to her. Although in his email Mr McCord asked Angela Rayner:

"we would appreciate your comments on the proposed axing of 246 beds at the hospital, which includes the demolition of the Charlesworth Building", Ms. Rayner declined to comment.

Tameside Hospital has a relatively - compared with England overall - low level of hospital doctors per bed and a relatively high level of bed occupancy, which are both factors significantly associated with high adjusted mortality ratios - death rates. In July 2013, the hospital was put into special measures having been found to have serious failures in the care it was providing.

Although Tameside Hospital recently received a 'GOOD' rating from the 'Care Quality Commission' (CQC), last month, Professor Sir Brian Jarman of Imperial College London, told Paul Broadhurst, a Dukinfield  health campaigner that between April 2007 and January 2017, nine mortality alerts about individual diagnoses or procedures had been sent to the Chief Executive of Tameside Hospital from his unit at Imperial College, London. In addition, he pointed out: "Tameside's SHMI values are high every year from 2011/12 to 2015/16 (the latest data available)."

Responding to the letter from Angela Rayner MP, Mr. McCord told Northern Voices:

"THAG welcomes these explicit assurances from the Chief Executive of Tameside Hospital that there will be no reduction in bed capacity at Tameside Hospital unless and until the level of patient demand permits it and that the new Integrated Care Organisation (ICO), has no plans to downgrade its A&E department as part of its future strategy. We will continue to monitor developments closely."

Banned and Gagged by Tameside Hospital!

Health Campaigner - Paul Broadhurst

A local health campaigner who is also member of the Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust, has been told by solicitors acting on behalf of Tameside Hospital that he has been banned from the premises of Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. 

In a solicitor’s letter that he received on 9 September, from Weightmans of Liverpool, Paul Broadhurst, from Dukinfield, was told that the hospital was intending to exclude him from the Trust’s premises and that he could now only attend the hospital, when seeking emergency or planned medical treatment. Although Mr Broadhurst, is a member of the hospital trust, the letter warned him:

“If you attend for any other purpose then you would be trespassing and action could be taken to remove you from the site and/or legal action could be brought against you.”

Tameside Hospital claim that they have banned Broadhurst from their premises, because he has campaigned to “harass and discredit the Trust’s employees and officers.” They also allege that he has emailed Trust Governors and Non-Executive Directors criticising the Chair and stating that he should resign. Moreover, that on occasions, he has been seen at the hospital with a placard around his neck and engages in conversations, with people at the hospital. They also claim that he has no legitimate reason to conduct his campaign and recently infiltrated and disrupted a staff focus group meeting, with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The hospital also insists that Mr Broadhurst has failed to use the ‘proper channels’, but don’t explain what these are. 

Without doubt, Paul Broadhurst, is an irritant and a thorn in the side of the management at Tameside Hospital. But we do live in a free country and not Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, as Tameside Hospital, and their solicitors seem to think. What some people may see as quite unreasonable behaviour, is seen by others, as perfectly legitimate activity that is in the public interest. Many people applaud Paul Broadhurst, for his efforts to improve patient care at Tameside Hospital.  

When the current CEO, Karen James, took over as interim CEO in the summer of 2013, following the resignation of the then CEO, Christine Green, when the hospital was put into ‘special measures’ following the Keogh review, she promised a new era of openness and transparency. Today, walking around Tameside Hospital, you will see notices displayed, “if in doubt speak out!”  The reason for this, is because the hospital has form and a history, for harassing and bullying staff who speak out. You might say that a lack of candour was a major reason why the hospital was put into special measures.  Hospital staff knew that to raise concerns, led to reprisals being taken against them by hospital management. In its Annual Report 2014/15 (Our staff), some 21% of staff working at Tameside Hospital claimed to have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse, in the last twelve months.  Milton Peña, who worked at Tameside Hospital for seventeen years, as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, has described in detail in his recently published memoirs, the threats and intimidation that was meted out to him by Tameside Hospital management in their quest to stop him speaking out about the lack of patient safety at the hospital.  

For Paul Broadhurst, this ban by Tameside Hospital management, is just history repeating itself and a pathetic attempt to stop him speaking out. Five years ago (2011), he was banned from the hospital premises for similar reasons when he received a solicitors letter from Hempson’s in Manchester.  When he went to the hospital in 2011, for medical help with a serious heart condition, he was treated like the American gangster, John Dillinger (public enemy number one), and escorted around the hospital by burly security staff as he attended his hospital appointments. He regards many of the allegations made by the hospital as malicious, fabricated and potentially defamatory.  While he doesn’t deny calling on the Chair of Tameside Hospital, Paul Connellan, to resign, he says that his “days of action” have always taken place off hospital property and he denies, disrupting any meetings of the Board or Governors, which are held at the hospital and which the public can attend as observers only, and are not allowed to speak. The allegation that he infiltrated and disrupted a meeting with hospital staff and the CQC on 10 August, he regards as ludicrously absurd, pointing out that he’d arranged to meet the manager of the CQC at the hospital, and when asked to wait outside the meeting, had complied immediately.

Although the hospital has been made aware of these facts, they have refused to lift the ban on Paul Broadhurst. Despite asking the solicitor for hard evidence to substantiate the allegations made against him by the hospital, this as not been forthcoming. When he sought to attend the hospital AGM on 27 September 2016, as a member of the public, Mr Broadhurst was denied access by security staff. Just over a week later, on 4 October, when he attended the hospital to accompany his seriously ill wife, Mary, he was thrown off the premises by security staff who falsely claimed that they had an ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Order’ (ASBO) against him. Karen James later apologised for the way he had been treated but refused to lift the ban. Despite the appalling and inhuman behaviour that Mr Broadhurst was subjected to, Ms James, was recently short-listed for the prestigious ‘Chief-Executive-of-the-Year’ health service journal award.

As a member of the Tameside hospital trust, Mr Broadhurst believes the hospital have no legal right to ban him from the premises. He believes that the hospital is harassing him and that their allegations are malicious, false and defamatory.  He is also adamant that the hospital has breached his human rights in denying him access to public meetings. The hospital ban has received quite a lot of media publicity with Tameside Hospital management, being held up to ridicule for their actions in trying to silence him, which seems to have had the opposite effect.  A group to support Mr Broadhurst has been set up and is demanding that the hospital apologises to Mr Broadhurst and lifts the ban.  Perhaps a more appropriate notice for display throughout the hospital run by Karen James, would be: “If in doubt, Watch out!”

Health Education threatened to pull out trainee doctors at Tameside Hospital!

ALTHOUGH senior management at Tameside Hospital have been dropping like flies since publication of the Sir Bruce Keogh (NHS Medical Director) report in July, the Chairman of the Board, Paul Connellan, remains in his post despite calls for him to go. He recently told a local newspaper that he was “in for the long-haul.”

The report led to the resignations of the Chief Executive, Christine Green, Medical Director, Tariq Mahmood and David Wilkinson, the Director of Human Resources. An interim Chief Executive, Karen James and Medical Director, Brendan Ryan, were brought in by the regulator ‘Monitor’ to take over.

The Annual Members’ Meeting of Tameside Hospital, which took place on 18 September, was the first members meeting since the hospital was put into ‘Special Measures’ following publication of the report.

In his ‘Welcome and Introductions’, Connellan tried to accentuate the positive by stressing that more patients “than ever come to us both for non-elective and elective surgery.” According to the Chairman, the number of patients being referred to the hospital by GP’s, is on the increase. Seemingly, the hospital had made £9m of savings which we are led to believe, doesn’t affect patient care at the hospital. On another up-beat note, we were told the hospital now had 18,000 members and 48 of the hospital’s staff had received an “NHS hero award.” While acknowledging that the Keogh report had been hard for people working at the hospital he stressed that “staff had come through it.” He expressed his thanks to all the staff across the hospital and “Karen and Brendan” who he’d, asked for assistance.

The new Director of Nursing, John Goodenough, told the meting that monthly performance reports had been introduced by the hospital to ensure that things were kept on track and to highlight when remedial action was necessary. When asked by Milton Pena, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, about ‘appalling nursing/patient staffing ratios’ at the hospital and what he was doing about it, he told the meeting that they were aiming at one qualified nurse for every eight patients and one supernumerary nurse per ward in addition to a minimum of two qualified nurses on each ward. Asked by a member of the public about improvements in infection control, he replied: “We still have a long way to go on infection control, but we’re improving.”

Karen James, the interim C.E.O. talked about the need for change and improvement and the dedication of staff. How it was necessary to learn from the past but also to “move forward”. “Moving forward”, seems to be the latest buzz word among management types and Ms. James talks a lot about it. She talked about the ‘listening event’ that the hospital have launched and how they’d already had a lot of positive feedback from stakeholders. She ended her speech by saying: “I look forward to going forward.”

Rod McCord of the Tameside Hospital Action Group (THAG), pointed out that in his view, listening wasn’t an event but ought to be continuous. He asked Ms. James if this was how she envisaged it. He explained that every year the Care Quality Commission (CQC), had said that the failure to communicate in hospitals was a recurring problem. Patients needed protection in hospital and they needed advocates, somebody who knew them. He told the meeting that families should have the automatic right to be present in hospital when consultants visited a patient.

Responding to his question, Ms. James said that she totally agreed that listening should be continuous exercise but while patients had rights, the hospital had to take the wishes of the patients into account.

In a question from the floor, Paul Broadhurst, asked about a report from the Deanery that had threatened to withdraw trainee doctors from the hospital because of concerns over patient’s safety and the inadequate training of junior doctors.

Interim Medical Director, Brendan Ryan, confirmed that Health Education North West, which oversees the training of post-graduate medical students, had threatened to withdraw trainee doctors form the hospital but that he’d asked the Dean to give the hospital a “fighting chance”. He told the meeting that he’d agreed that there concerns were valid particularly about the coverage for junior doctors at weekends. Coverage had now improved and there had been listening events with the junior doctors who were speaking to them. He felt that the hospital was best judged not by its problems but how it responded to them. He told the meeting that the Dean hadn’t carried out her threat to withdraw trainee doctors in August but added:

“They’re still telling us things we don’t like to hear but we’re listening and working with colleagues to put things right. We’re not out of the woods yet! I’m reasonably confident as we keep going forward, we can make a convincing case.”

Speaking from the floor, Rod McCord told the meeting that nobody should have been surprised at the findings of the Keogh report. THAG had been complaining about these things for years – unreliable clinical audits, poor care, bad practice, lack of clinical governance. There had been instances of patients who had been left festering in their own faeces and urine which was not the fault of nurses, but a lack of nurses. The problems at the hospital were visceral. A trust Board that was uniformed and unable to hold non-executive board members to account. Governors who had inadequate understanding of what was required of them and who couldn’t hold the former Chief Executive (Christine Green) to account. He told the meeting:

“In my life I have never heard anything more feeble as that.” He added that the hospitals action plan was barely adequate to meet the enormity of the challenges ahead and that one of the aims of the ‘Charter for Change’ (compiled by THAG and the ‘Campaign for Change’) was to empower patients and their families and the nursing staff at the hospital. Addressing the Chairman, Mr. McCord asked: “Is that aim shared by you as Chair, the Board, and the Council of Governors”?

Responding to his question, Paul Connellan said that the Keogh report had identified potential things that can go wrong or non-events. That the hospital was under extensive scrutiny by the regulator and that the board had not a chance to talk about the ‘Charter for Change’ but that they hoped to embody much of it in various other documents. However, he didn’t want staff to have to work throughout a multiple tick box, check box. He concluded by saying that the hospital would be holding regular press conferences for people to ask about the progress that was being made.

Although the hospital has recently launched a ‘listening event’ since being put into ‘special measures’, to obtain feedback, it was rather obvious that apart from Milton Pena, nobody from the hospital staff, the Board or the Council of Members, asked a single question or offered any criticism whatsoever, throughout the duration of the meeting. However, having attended four of these highly staged managed annual events, this is not unusual. The Keogh report revealed that hospital staff are apprehensive about speaking out. Had it not been for the awkward squad who turn up for this annual event on a regular basis, one can safely say, that no questions would get asked. Needless to say, there was no mention of the former Chief Executive, Christine Green, who appears to have been flushed down the collective memory hole. 

To what extent the Chairman values feedback from the public is open to question. Before the meeting started, a rather anxious and agitated Mr. Connellan was seen objecting to the document the ‘Charter for Change’ being distributed inside the annual members’ meeting and was heard to say to Rod McCord:

 “This should be done outside the meeting. This is not an official document, this is a members meeting; you’re not allowed to pretend this is a hospital document.”

As it is clear from reading the document who the authors are, it is less clear, why Connellan should think it was being presented as a hospital document. It looked quite farcical to see one of his minions scurrying around the lecture room collecting the document so staff couldn’t read it.

Turning to Milton Pena, who for over a decade has fought a courageous, committed and determined campaign, to improve patient care at the hospital, Connellan was heard to say:

“I’m not accountable to you, as I know you would like me to be. I’m accountable to the Board and its members.” Mr. Pena told Connellan: “You’re accountable to everybody.”

Just how long Mr. Connellan keeps his job, remains to be seen. But judging from a recent report in the Manchester Evening News, Connellan and the Board could all be getting the chop very soon if they fail to make the required progress. Two years ago, when he was appointed Chairman, he vowed to both improve the image of the hospital and to get to the bottom of the hospitals high death rate. He has failed miserably on both counts.